


Our blessings one by one

by mayachain



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Stargate, Brothers, Community: mini_nanowrimo, Dysfunctional Family, Father-Son Relationship, M/M, Run-On Sentences, math!John, undiagnosed psychological trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where there is no Stargate Program, Major Sheppard is dishonorably discharged and left to fend for himself by his father, but not his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our blessings one by one

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Unspecified war-induced trauma, mention but no actual use of alcohol as a coping mechanism, low-key relationship, run-on sentences.
> 
> Thank you, **mini_wrimo**! This has been in my w.i.p. folder for years as the "DavidYay!AU". In [Beating Holidays](http://archiveofourown.org/works/43433) there is this part where David muses re: his and John's estrangement: "It was all because I wasn't at the airport," referring to John's return from Afghanistan. Naturally a plot bunny was born - what if he _had been_ at the airport? The other AU elements sort of happend by themselves. Also, Johnny Cash's "Family Bible" seems to be my go-to song for Sheppard family fic titles.

**Part 1**

David’s annoyance at having to drive to and wait at the airport lasts exactly as long as it takes him to realize that John didn’t think he would come. _Take care of your brother,_ Mom had implored him more than once during her last days, and David knows he hasn’t exactly done a great job of it, but this? John not believing David would come, not expecting him to be there, not _relying_ on his presence after getting off the plane? When all else failed, as David supposes it has, Johnny was supposed to be secure in the knowledge that he still had a brother. It hurts, and David hates to think what he must have done to deserve this lack of faith.

“Let’s get you home,” he says, faking all the confidence he doesn’t feel at the moment. There’s a second where he fears John will refuse to come with him, but apparently, things haven’t yet deteriorated that far between them. John looks at him for a long second and then just sags, _not alone_ , leaving David to make a grab for both his arm and what little there is of his luggage.

John seems to draw further and further into himself as they make their way to David’s car, disappears further still when it becomes clear that they’re going to David’s place and not their father’s. David suspects he can only begin to understand what a big show of trust this is, that John doesn’t pretend he is fine, but as he navigates them toward his Manhattan apartment, he’s feeling rather overwhelmed at seeing his contrary younger brother so… lifeless.

No permanent injuries, the captain who had phoned David had said. Once he wrangles John into the bathroom and gets a look at the scars, he can see where they performed surgeries while deciding on their major’s fate, see way more of his brother than he has since they were eight and six. It’s like John doesn’t _care_ whether David is in the room or not as he stoically moves to wash up after the journey and dress himself, capable of it on his own, thank God. It’s not that long since he left the military hospital, though, and David doesn’t dare leave.

It’s not what he expected when he got up this morning, but it feels like a victory when John is finally posited under the covers of David’s convertible couch, supposedly asleep. With the words “prisoner of war,” “disobeyed orders,” “rescue hopelessly fucked-up,” “shock” and “dishonorable discharge” coursing through David’s mind, however, said victory feels hollow.

*

“I’ve got John,” is the first thing he says when their father answers his call. There’s nothing but silence on the other end of the line, and David tries to tell himself it’s not so bad, Dad hasn’t hung up yet, at least. “He’s sleeping now,” he insists stubbornly, torn between thinking _Don’t do this_ and _This is why some stranger felt he had to call me._ “Anyway,” he says at last, cursing himself quietly for giving in. Perhaps there is more to be done once they meet in person. “What can we expect from Dr. McKay tomorrow?”

He doesn’t sleep well that night, keeps waiting to be roused by shouts, screams, thinks _prisoner of war,_ but there’s nothing. No sound, such a lack of noise that John might as well still be overseas, and when David finally knows he won’t get any more sleep, John is sitting upright on the couch, blanket around his shoulders. He doesn’t look up at David’s shuffling through the door, just keeps staring at his hands, through his hands, at something David can’t and doesn’t want to see. 

The cold shower doesn’t do all that much to wake him up, but David thinks he might make it through the day once he gets a cup of coffee and something to eat. John doesn’t move as David sets the table for breakfast, but he does eat the sandwich David puts in front of him, drinks his tea. David feels restless. Until three days ago he hadn’t even known John wasn’t still busy in Afghanistan, and he doesn’t know what to do with John this listless, tries to calm himself with the thought that ‘suicide watch’ had not been among the captain’s warnings. They don’t really know each other anymore. This is only the first day. 

“I need to go to work,” he says and waits, and waits and waits, and _waits_ until John mutters, barely audible, “‘kay.” He doesn’t want to leave, but John is thirty-five, and at least he’ll be only a few blocks down and not several states away.

Before yesterday, he would have thought that John would be able to work his health care issues out himself, but the first thing he does when he steps into the office is ask Mrs. Donovan to compile a list of physical therapists nearby, just in case.

*

“What’s with you?” Dr. McKay asks when they pause for lunch before the actual signing. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Of course not,” David answers smoothly, surprised though he is that the other man must at some point have looked up from his laptop enough to notice David’s mood. He’d tried to mention John to Dad before the meeting and on the way out but Dad had given him no chance.

“Good, that’s good,” Dr. McKay murmurs, gulping down coffee like there’s any chance their supply will run out. “It’s not like I have time for people who have no chance of understanding even a fraction of what I’m doing getting cold feet.”

“I’m not getting cold feet,” David insists, the insult sliding off him like it wouldn’t have – and didn’t – when they were introduced a year ago. “My father certainly isn’t.” Patrick Sheppard has even less of a chance of understanding the exact details of what _McKay Incorporated_ and _Sheppard Industries_ will be doing to harness solar energy, but Dad has never had a problem with not grasping technical details the way David has. He has always been more than content to leave that part of the business to others, even and especially when he is convinced that the move he is about to make will secure the company a position miles ahead of all rivals.

Dr. McKay gives David a skeptical look, then says, “Don’t shake my hand if you’re coming down with something, we can’t afford your paper pusher germs to compromise my valuable brain,” which is why later, David makes a show of wiping the pen down before passing it on. 

_D. Sheppard_ it reads next to his father’s barely legible _PS_ , both about to be dwarfed by the lengthy _M. Rodney I. McKay, PhD, PhD._

*

John doesn’t sleep. After a few nights, David figures out that his brother passes out from exhaustion after his body can’t take it any longer, but he doesn’t _sleep_.

Sending him to their childhood home outside Phoenix where spending time with the horses might do some good isn’t really an option. David has always been aware that _take care of your brother_ does not involve foisting the kid off on the mansion staff, and he has to stay close to the Manhattan offices for, oh, the next year or so, the occasional short trip not included. 

He spends the days debating whether he should demand John leave the house for physical therapy. In the end, when five days have passed and John has made no move toward the telephone, David calls the woman at the top of Mrs. Donovan’s list and arranges for his driver to give her the keys to the apartment and his private gym.

Oddly enough, John doesn’t protest the sudden presence of a stranger in his life, volunteers a file the hospital must have left him with, lets her touch him for directions and answers her questions with a nod, a shake of his head, the occasional mumbled word. He goes through the exercises readily enough once there’s somebody to set them, even repeats them when David is at home and working out himself, but it’s plain to both David and Ms. Vihta that he’s going through the motions, nothing more. 

David is infinitely grateful for the fact that Ms. Vihta doesn’t once suggest he hire a shrink. He’s beginning to think he’ll need at least one more professional to help John, someone competent to get his brother back from wherever the Air Force left him. But while John may not be fully himself at the moment, he is still more than capable of disappearing out of David’s life once more if he feels his confidence, such as it is, has been betrayed. He would have managed somehow, would have _made_ himself manage somehow if David hadn’t been at the airport. 

He doesn’t have to yet, now.

Three weeks pass, and it’s getting better. In between share holder pacifications and stock market values reports, David wants to tell Dad things like “the bruises are finally gone” and “he made two miles on the treadmill yesterday” and only the fact that John hasn’t asked after their father once, either, makes him hold his tongue.

John’s limbs and joints and muscles are getting stronger, and now he helps David set the table for breakfast. Still, he doesn’t _sleep_ if not unconscious from exhaustion – thank heavens for Ms. Vihta’s regimen – and he rarely speaks to David or Ms. Vihta out of his own. He hasn’t contacted anyone else as far as David knows, and when he’s not passed out or exercising or eating, he is staring at hands that are shaking from nightmares David never hears. 

It’s not until Dr. McKay’s harried aid drops the first drafts on Mrs. Donovan’s desk that David gets an inkling of what to do.

 

**Part 2**

Dave is working again. He’s always working, or working out, or preparing some meal or other for the two of them. Usually, John can ignore it, can ignore the blackberry and the laptop as much as he is ignoring everything else around him because it doesn’t concern him in any way whatsoever. Most of the time it’s almost soothing, even, and it’s clear that Dave is in his element, or, in their grandfather’s words, “confident and competent and other words with c.”

Not today, though.

Today, Dave is sitting in his armchair across from John, reading through a stack of paper, getting more and more frustrated by the minute. John has no particular interest in whatever deal his brother is reading about, but he isn’t keen on Dave getting mad and revving up the tension in the apartment even further, either.

Finally, Dave tosses the papers onto the TV table with an undignified growl, gets up to get himself another fruity drink. A month ago, it likely would have been a tumbler of scotch, but there is no alcohol in the house. If John wanted to take that route of self-betterment, he’d clearly have to venture outside his cave and get the booze himself. 

The sheet that lands half within John’s vision is full of sketches and calculations, Dave’s handwriting where he tried to follow the steps, and question marks.

 _It’s an engine for a plane._ The thought runs through John’s brain like lightning. For a second, he can’t breathe, and he doesn’t _want_ to get involved, but before he can stop himself, his left hand has already reached out.

When Dave comes back, t-shirt soaked with sweat from – when did he go work out? – the papers are stacked neatly on the table, John’s heart is pounding like a rabbit’s, and the margins are full of explanations.

*

A new element enters their routine. Dave still goes over contract proposals and stock market figures and efficiency reports without attempting to talk to John about them, but whenever _McKay Incorporated_ sends him new details to look over, he asks John to help make sense of them. 

“I’m not working for _Sheppard Industries,_ ” John tries to make clear about two months in.

“You’re not working for _Sheppard Industries_ ,” Dave agrees readily enough, allaying some of John’s fear of being somehow maneuvered back under his thanks-for-nothing father’s thumb. “You’re helping me do my homework,” Dave asserts, and John can’t help the laugh that barks out of his mouth at that. And while he’s fairly confident Dave is secretly _paying_ him for their evening sessions, the calculations are the first thing that have managed to grab John’s interest in months, that have demanded his concentration in a way TV or magazines or books or Ms. Vihta’s exercises never could. For the few hours he spends working on them, they block out the memory of the rough shouts of the men so much younger than him during their capture, the contempt in his superior officer’s and disgust and pity in most of his unit’s eyes, of waking up to the lifeless weight of Captain Holland in his arms. 

If this were something he and Dave talked about – which it's not and won’t become in a million years – he’d ask how the hell the man he knows as his father came to throw in the future of _Sheppard Industries_ with ideas as progressive as those of this Dr. Rodney McKay.

Months go by. Eventually, Ms. Vihta succeeds in coercing him to go out on a walk with her, which becomes a jog, which becomes a run. He’s starting to think he ought to look into finding a place of his own soon, but Dave gives no indication that _he_ thinks John should move off his couch, and John is grateful for that. He’s self-aware enough that he doesn’t know, he _really_ doesn’t know what he would have done if Captain Marcus hadn’t called Dave, if Dave had ignored John’s offhand email and hadn’t been at the airport. Which is why he only thinks twice about agreeing when Dave asks him to come to a pre-Christmas dinner party hosting all of _Sheppard Industry_ ‘s major rival and partner firms.

Even after Afghanistan, it remains pretty high up on his list of least favorite things, but there’s a difference now. This time, there is no all-but order to attend from his father – in fact, there is no word from his father at all – and while he can’t imagine why Dave would want him there, he really does think that he owes Dave this much, after all Dave has done for him.

*

It becomes clear when they arrive at the party that Dave is making a statement, but it becomes equally evident that it’s not working. Dave brought him, so it’s not possible to show him the door without making a scene, but _Dave_ owes _John_ for the way their father’s eyes slide right through him.

To outsiders, the tension between them is not obvious, and Dave’s envisioned picture perfect moment with John toasting the guests alongside Patrick with Dave between them does happen. John manages to nod and smile and avoid all eye contact with the man, shaking hands with people Dave introduces him to. As the canapés appear and the champagne flows on, he even volunteers to re-introduce himself to people he recognizes. 

Finally, the worst rush is over, and Dave gives him a nod that lets him escape to the bar. Sipping the vodka martini that seemed like the best choice, he tries to relax with his back to the crowd and actually succeeds in suppressing the flinch when there’s a movement at his right side and someone joins him. 

“If I have to justify the cost of the connector one more time, I’m going to be _pissed_ ,” the man informs the barman, who only looks at him blankly and then hands him an Irish Coffee. “This is common sense, you should be able to answer me, probably, hopefully, else things are already even more fucked up for the human race than I think, which not at all by coincidence already happens to be quite a lot. I could give you the calculations, if I thought you’d understand them, which I don’t, naturally, but that’s not the point. The point is that if I tell you the margin has to be, say, 0.0141 and not 0.0143 or, heaven forbid, an oh-so-convenient 0.0145, for reasons of safety and ultimate longevity of everyone involved, what does it _matter_ that there’s a completely negligible difference on the final bill? _Of course_ it’s more difficult to achieve than a clean, nice 0.014, but then you’d be heading right off in the _other_ wrong direction. Did I not explain this in, oh, about every of the forty-thousand meetings we’ve had since this project began? In briefings? In my plans? Does anyone except Sheppard junior ever even _read_ the data I send them? I’m actually rather convinced that they don’t, because this is the only explanation why each and every time they stare at me as if it’s all news to them.”

“You should try selling them a 0.0142,” John finds himself saying when the man - _so this must be Dr. McKay_ \- actually needs to stop to take a breath. “It’d sound like you’re giving them something, and it would still be perfectly safe. Well, no. _Perfectly safe_ would mean 0.014122, if that was the number you’re actually talking about, which, trade secrets, so you’re not. But I doubt even the old man has the equipment to achieve that kind of precision yet.”

McKay stares at him for a full half minute, open-mouthed. Then he slams his hand down next to his untouched glass and rounds in on John. “You! You’re the one screening the blueprints! You’re the one who caught the typo in Kusanagi’s calculations!”

“If that was a typo, I hope that person isn’t typing for you anymore,” John scoffs, surprised at the horror he feels at the thought that such an error had been the result of plain oversight and not honest miscalculation. 

“Oh, you can bet your _anything_ with those sorry excuses for glasses she isn’t,” McKay agrees, but then his mind is already on something more current, more important. A battered notepad and a fountain pen find their way into his hands, and a set of equations is scribbled on a blank page almost too quickly for John to catch. “Here! This is what I found on the whiteboard this morning. I can’t actually tell you about the context since you’re obviously one of Sheppard’s non-dolts, not mine, but – Fix it.”

“I’m not the old man’s anything,” John denies, trying to ignore how hollow his voice sounds, but he squints at the section McKay has shoved in his face nonetheless. It takes him a while, and he can feel himself start to flush under McKay’s expectant, impatient gaze, but then he snags the pen out of the man’s hand and corrects where he’s pretty sure he needs to correct.

“Exactly!” McKay exclaims, deeply satisfied and loud enough that a few of Dave’s party-goers take an interest.

“I can’t fly anymore, doesn’t mean I want anyone else to crash,” John says before he can think about it. He can see the thoughts flicker through McKay’s brain - _I didn’t tell you this was for a plane, too_ \- but what actually comes out of the man’s mouth is: “You’re Patrick Sheppard’s son.”

“I’m David Sheppard’s brother,” John corrects evenly, and he must somehow manage to get his point across, for McKay nods, flicks his eyes to the equations again, and then says:

“Come work for me.”

 

**Part 3**

When they’re eating breakfast the morning after John meets Dr. McKay at the pre-Christmas shinding, John stares at David for a long while and then accuses, “This is why you wanted me to be there.”

“I thought that you’d either hate each other on sight, or you’d get along great,” David says mildly, not confirming or denying anything. He doesn’t bother to add that he’d pretty much banked on the latter. A lot of feathers were kept from being ruffled by John keeping McKay out of circulation, which is a plus. And John looks good, more animated than he has the entire time since he came back, and David doesn’t need to have known John his whole life to see right through his annoyance.

John huffs, but he does borrow David’s Mercedes for a trip to _McKay Incorporated,_ and he does come back with a new laptop and a handful of manila folders and an expression that David very nearly dares describe as happy. It’s so much more than David had hoped for that he nearly fails to wipe his own happy grin from his face on the walk to his office.

*

As February slides into March, the production of the parts that will go into the prototype is started. At _McKay Incorporated_ , the flight simulator is programmed, then reprogrammed, then reprogrammed again. Most important of all, David comes home every other day to discover Rodney McKay in his living room. David quickly makes himself scarce, not wanting to get between what appears to be developing between the two of them.

There are bad days, like the Monday John has to make an appearance at a hearing that isn’t so much a hearing as it is a harassment by the Air Force, finally getting around to present him with his discharge papers. When he gets back late that evening he shoves all the alcohol that has made its way back into the cabinets into David’s bedroom and hardly speaks a word for the rest of the week, but he doesn’t stop going for runs and he accepts and reads the specs McKay shoves into his hands. 

It’s a day that David is intensely glad that the spokespeople out of the Pentagon haven’t had much good to say about the _S.I. / McKay Inc._ endeavor, entrenched in what Dad calls an “ultimately doomed love affair with the oil industry” as they are. There is little chance that John will have to come across another general in the near future, though David hopes to one day get to meet Captain Marcus and thank him. Maybe, once he completes his term of service, the man will want a job.

There are tense days, like the Saturday John goes missing while David is out playing golf with _Sheppard Industries_ ’ premier investors. He doesn’t even know anything is wrong until McKay calls him in a panic: “Did I forget he had a physio or something?!” But he hasn’t, and it’s not like months ago now when David was half prepared to find John gone whenever he came home. The fact that his brother _had_ been there each evening, morning after morning, had shown David exactly how much his brother had been broken until David in his desperation had thrown enough math at him to provisionally fix him. With almost an hour past what David has dubbed The Weekend Brunch Date, he has to admit McKay might be right when he fears, “Something could have gone wrong while he was out on his run.”

Later, when David’s party has long since completed the golf course, when Mrs. Donovan has called all the hospitals in the area to no news, when Dr. Kusanagi has failed to trace John’s phone and they are one step away from involving the police, David doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when John returns to the apartment tired but unharmed and tells him and ~~McKay~~ Rodney both, guilty but defiant, “I had to go see Holland’s mom.” He is glad that Rodney does all the shouting for him, glad that he doesn’t have to decide whether or not he wants or needs an apology, glad that he can just sit back on the couch that’ll still double as John’s bed tonight and close his eyes.

And then there are better days, like the Wednesday David discovers that Rodney apparently has decided that the debate about whether or not John should be put into the flight simulator is one they aren’t going to have. Neither Dad nor David are directly involved in that part of the process so strictly speaking their input isn’t even required. 

David has had no proof that Rodney has picked up on the bad blood that is constantly simmering between Dad and Dad’s youngest son – or, if David is honest with himself and since the day David met John at the airport, sons. He allows himself to feel slightly gleeful at the imagination of Dad’s face, provided his assistant doesn’t screen the missive, feels hopeful about nearly all aspects of his life alike at the sight of John’s name listed as third in line to eventually try out their prototype with only the head pilots from both companies before him. 

He can hardly wait to see John disembark after flying a plane held in the air solely by the power of the sun. 

 

.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Friendly Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966479) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain)
  * [Cast Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966506) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain)
  * [Bulletin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966542) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain)




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